Yahoo Finance interviewed Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of the popular social network Reddit and husband of tennis player Serena Williams, at The Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center where he was asked about his interest in cryptocurrencies and expectations on Bitcoin (BTC).
During the interview, Ohanian stated that Bitcoin was a way of storing value, where cryptocurrencies are just ‘grabbing traction’ since they are still at an early stage. Even despite its volatility, the entrepreneur commented that some people would prefer using cryptos rather than being at the mercy of the volatility of FIAT money. He said this is especially true for countries with paralyzed economies such as Turkey, which has been affected by the tariffs imposed on its exports of steel and aluminum and citizens are now forced to seek other financial instruments to try and alleviate the devaluation of their local currency.
Ohanian is currently partner of Garry Tan in VC firm, Initialized Capital, and in his interview he commented that Tan was the visionary who opened his eyes to the crypto world and was one of the first to convince him to support Brian Armstrong, co-founder of Coinbase, before he even had a partner for that project. He added: “the credit is from Gary for being there so early” and that he is only trying to follow his movements.
Adoption, the secret of the Bitcoin value
Even though Bitcoin is barely in the beginning stage before we can even think of mass adoption, Ohanian considers that companies like Coinbase are in a privileged position to help accomplish this task by liaising between users and cryptocurrencies so that they can obtain cryptos in the easiest way possible, through a user-friendly platform.
The CEO of Coinbase said that the platform reached 50,000 new users a day back in 2017, which meant greater adoption of the technology.
We must also remember that Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum thinks in the same way around the importance of adoption (as a source of value of a cryptocurrency) as he pointed out that greater emphasis should be given to facilitating access to cryptocurrencies for people instead of paying attention to the pronouncements of the Bitcoin ETFs.
